Tag: business planning

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Making flexible working work

One way to recruit and retain good staff is to offer flexible working. Flexible in terms of hours and location.

Many people are uncertain how to make the change to remote working and struggling to recruit high calibre people. At Hudson Accountants we offered flexibility over hours and, to a lesser extent, location but Minerva Accountants is fully remote. So how do we do it?

Cloud software is a necessity but the less obvious key is to have good communication.

1. We use a shared inbox. As long as you use the hello@minervaaccountants.co.uk email address anybody can pick up the query or task even if the regular CAM (client account manager) is off. If it will wait until their return we use coloured flags to allocate the emails to a particular person. As well as ensuring that the best person can help with your enquiry it also reduces our digital footprint.

2. Emails are also logged by Accountancy Manager so that they are available to the whole team. We can each follow conversations. For this reason we prefer emails but notes are added of any telephone conversations.

3. We use a central receptionist to answer and allocate all telephone calls. We use VOIP (voice over internet protocol) and Webex phones to enable remote working.

4. We have a brief online call at 9am each morning to discuss what everybody is working on and if they need somebody else to do something to help them.

5. We meet up (in person if possible) once a quarter to review the results of the last quarter, plan our next three months’ targets, and spend a little time chatting.

Do you offer flexible working?

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Who can you delegate to? 

Last week we looked at what you could delegate. This week I want to consider who you can delegate to.

-An employee. But what if you are a solopreneur?

-A subcontractor. Lots of people have left employment and are happy providing their services for lots of smaller clients

-An expert. As a technophile I consider myself pretty good on the IT front but it is still often more efficient to use a local IT firm when nothing is immediately obvious (we use PCDial.com) as they come across these problems all the time and usually know exactly where to look straight away. It’s the same reason we encourage our clients to delegate their bookkeeping to us; we’re faster and better than them.

-Automation. We use a lot of software in our business. Whilst it doesn’t replace people it does save our time on the mundane chores. Accountancy Manager handles all our deadline and client reminders, Stripe collects card payments for clients that don’t already pay us by direct debit through Go Cardless. Dext and hubdoc allow clients to submit their bookkeeping to us electronically without having to print out every single invoice. We can usually find software to help clients improve their business efficiency too.

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Should you be delegating more? 

The answer is almost certainly yes.

There are certain things that only you can do in your business but there is probably a lot of admin or other work that can be delegated to somebody ‘cheaper’ than you.

When coaching busy clients I recommend that they keep a timesheet for a couple of weeks. This can be on paper or using one of the free apps such as Toggl.

At the end of the fortnight look at all the work that isn’t profitable.

-If it is for a client should you be charging more or perhaps somebody else can do the work instead?

-If it isn’t customer work then is it the sort of thing that somebody else can do instead (next week I’ll talk about who you might delegate to)

-If it is work that you don’t enjoy then it might make sense to delegate it anyway. This is the main reason we encourage clients to delegate their bookkeeping to us as we can do it faster, and better, and we have people who actually enjoy the work.

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Still reinventing the wheel?

Today I’m borrowing a quote from Mark Twain

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of coloured glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

I love being an accountant and working with lots of different businesses within lots of different industries. This, along with running my own businesses (an Minerva Accountants and a speaking/coaching business) gives me a wealth of practical ideas for business improvements as well as all the books I read.

Where do you get your ideas from?

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Don’t reinvent the wheel

Over the years we have built up a collection of helpsheets and explanatory videos. This is because I am lazy (although I prefer to think of it as efficient) and hate doing the same thing again and again.

If a client asks a question that we think may be asked a second time then the team don’t just answer the question once but they, or I, write a helpsheet so that we have a library of resources to help instantly.

What do you do to save time?

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Tax Tip

Director’s responsibilities

Whilst it might feel good to be the director of your own company you have several responsibilities as directors under the Companies Act 2006:

  1. To act within their powers (in the articles of association etc)
  2. To promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole ie not benefitting one member above the company eg by allowing one director/shareholder to take out more dividends/loans that the company can afford
  3. To exercise independent judgement – you can take advice but must decide for yourself
  4. To exercise reasonable care, skill and diligence eg using a chartered accountant or professional bookkeeper if you don’t have those skills in house
  5. To avoid conflict of interest
  6. Not to accept benefits from third parties
  7. To declare interests in transactions
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How to buy yourself more time

Having taken over a small practice I have been able to see the time saved by good practice management software.

We use Accountancy Manager but any decent practice management software will offer similar services

  1. A simple spreadsheet upload of all client standing data and services so everything is in one place (the PA from the new practice kindly provided this in the form of multiple spreadsheets which we merged)
  2. Engagement letters generated based on the services provided
  3. Engagement letters and accounts signed online
  4. Clients can update any missing information and changes of address in their standing data
  5. Automatic requests for missing data eg proof of ID or a UTR
  6. Recurring tasks set up automatically for each service
  7. Adding our own internal deadlines for tasks eg 3 months for accounts and 2 weeks for VAT returns rather than the 9-10 months and 5 weeks for the statutory deadlines.
  8. Automatic records request emails generated from those tasks and deadlines (all templates can be modified to suit your personal style)
  9. Time recording as the new practice still uses hourly billing
  10. Marking a task as complete automatically sets up the next occurrence
  11. Automatic links to Companies House to keep deadlines etc updated
  12. Generating confirmation statement reminders and submitting from within the software (a small handling charge on top of the Companies House fee)
  13. Tracking emails between clients and team members so they don’t have to CC me on everything
  14. Central repository of all information which helps as all the team are part time and even I am juggling two businesses.

It hasn’t been perfect (I’ll share my learnings/improvements separately) but it has been relatively smooth.

This technology has freed me up to ‘meet and greet’ the new clients as tech is still no replacement for human relationships.

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Why it may be best to stay small

Small is beautiful. It’s also less hassle and much more agile.

As the sole director of my business I can hold my board meetings in the shower and, if I come up with a bright idea, I can often have it implemented by evening.

The downside of a small business is reduced cover for holidays and sickness. Especially if your business is just you. On the other hand even the best team will take up your time in managing their time and workload.

Before growing your business beyond you it is worth considering whether this will best suit your personal goals. Instead of taking on more clients and higher overheads you could look at taking on better clients and providing them with more profitable services. Before recruiting staff you could investigate software and other automation.

Bigger isn’t always best.

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More than one tool in your toolbox

When it comes to improving your business you need to have more than one tool in your toolbox.

Although we often start with getting the pricing right we also like to look at other things. My books give you some examples of these but they are broadly:

Efficiencies – implement systems, checklists, automation and delegation

People – get the right people in the right place, suitably trained and equipped, and all pulling in the right direction

Marketing – a baseline level of marketing going on at all times so that you have clients/work already lined up for quieter periods

What else do you do to improve your business?

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Do you know your break even point?

Do you know how many units (and the mix of units) that you need to sell in order to cover your costs and break even?

This is an important figure for every business.

Now you can work out how many units you need to sell to make a particular level of profit.

And finally, you can work out your marketing and sales plan to actually sell that number of units. (Okay, there’s a bit more to it than just working out the numbers but at least you know what you’re aiming for)

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